Press release

Canadian star shines with Brazilian club

Canadian Sarah Pavan said playing with the Brazilian club is her priority right now.

Zurich,
Switzerland, October 9, 2013 – Canada's star indoor player Sarah
Pavan may have felt more comfortable playing with her opponents in
the first match of the first day of the FIVB Volleyball Women's Club
World Championships, but she sure didn't show it. With the second
highest points for Brazilian club Unilever Volei on Thursday (11),
the 1.96 meter-tall, 26 year old fits right in with the hard-hitting
team, which quickly defeated USA's Iowa Ice 3-0 (25-14, 25-16,
25-22).

"In
Brazil, the game is a lot faster, the players are a lot more physical
and overall they are just very athletic," Pavan
said, following her team's victory. "It
was a bit of an adjustment to play with the speed and the physicality
of their game, but that's why they're the best."

Pavan
said playing with the Brazilian club is her priority right now. But,
after the season, she has much bigger goals in beach volleyball. Pavan was a four-time First Team All-American at the University on Nebraska and previously played in Italy as well as the Canadian national team, but most recently shespent
the summer competingat the FIVB Beach Volleyball World
Tour and the FIVB
Beach Volleyball World Championships with fellow Canadian and beach
veteran Heather Bansley. Together, their sights are set on the 2016
Olympics.

"Indoor
is my first love so I'm going to continue to do that. I'm not ready
to give that up," she said. "But, I've
always wanted to go to the Olympics and it's probably not going to
happen indoor with Canada. So, my only option to represent my
country is on the beach."

Pavan's
experience with the Brazilian team will likely help build her success
on the sand. And along with the skills, she's also getting a unique
cultural experience as an athlete in the country.

"(Brazilians)
love sports, and other than soccer it's volleyball," she said. "I
think that's so cool because in North America you don't really see
that much. It's so fun to be a part of a culture that appreciates the
sport and knows what's going on with the teams. It's awesome."

She
still, however, has high hopes for the success of the sport in Canada.

"The
Canadian men, especially, have been doing great," she said. "It's a process
and a lot of the top counties in the would have gotten there over a
period of many years. I think things are heading in the right
direction right now, but its going to take some time for the results
to show."

Being
so far away from home, and traveling the world with Unilever Volei,
Pavan connects with friends and fans onTwitter, where she has
nearly 4,000 followers. She also used the platform to first announce
she would be playing with Unilever Volei in the 2012/13 season.

"I'm
a very shy person by nature, so it's not particularly easy for me to
just put myself out there in person,“ she said. "I know that can
be interpreted in not a way that I intend, so I try to use social
media to show the fans that I appreciate them and all of their
support, where it would be more difficult for me to go out and give
them hugs and stuff."

Her biggest message for fans: "Always push to be a little better
than you were the day before," she said.

"I
think that for me, it's never being satisfied with where you are.
I've tried to live by that my whole life. The moment start to think
that you're at a good spot and when you think that you're good
enough, that's when you're going to stop improving."

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